FUTURE IS GAMES - Co-Founder, Director
FEBRUARY 2013 - FEBRUARY 2014
- Overall event organization and team management (8 part-time or volunteer staff and myself working full-time).
- Created Facebook, Twitter, and reddit accounts; Promotions on all three platforms, community interaction on all three platforms, advertising on Facebook and LinkedIn.
- Launched a Kickstarter campaign within a constricted timeframe (not funded, but a great learning experience).
- Created a YouTube channel and playlist hosting all of our recorded content from FIGCON 2013.
- Built the website for Future Is Games using Squarespace’s CMS.
- Forged partnerships with the IGDA and a local charity, Pepped Up!.
- Negotiated sponsorships, acquiring one primary sponsor, and acted as the liaison for most of our speakers.
Future Is Games is an organization committed to growing education, development philosophies, and social awareness through the power of games.
As one of the founders of the organization, I oversaw all aspects of developing both our company and our flagship event, FIGCON 2013. I managed our team, handled our media campaigns, established our Kickstarter, handled speaker relations, reached out to (and acquired) sponsors/partners, and more.
FIGCON 2013 was hosted from 09 October – 11 October of 2013. The development conference was the first of its kind to take place in Arizona; some highlights over the three-day event include:
- Over 100 attendees.
- Hosted at the Phoenix Convention Center.
- Talks and workshops from 15 different presenters, including: Dave Lang, Jason Manley, Rob Jagnow, Tadhg Kelly, and Chris Crawford.
- An informative workshop from Chris Toepker on the topic of localization and a partnership with an educational workshop series, UAT’s Noob Workshops
- Showcases from local developers and artists.
- A variety of activities, including the debut of live-action Pac Man! and screenings of films about the game industry.
- Live events: a game jam with teams from GameFounders, a podcast session from ChatterBox Video Game Radio, and a musical performance from Random, aka Mega Ran.
- Press coverage of the event from: Gaming Blend, The Phoenix Business Journal, AZ Tech Beat, Geek 411 (Fall 2013), 8 Bit Brit, Lightning Octopus, GeekNewsNetwork.net.
Video content from the event can be found at our YouTube channel. For the FIGCON 2013 post-mortem, please visit the Future Is Games blog.